George Washington may be the father of our country, and nearly universally praised both for his military skills and for how he helped shape the presidency. But that didn't stop Congress from moving the observance of his February 22 birthday to the third Monday in February.

To throw salt into the wound, the holiday is now commonly called "Presidents Day."

Christopher Columbus is a man held in generally high esteem by Americans. Even though we can now be pretty sure that he wasn't the first Old World explorer to land here, and even though he wasn't seeking a new world but was really trying to find a short route to India, and even though he didn't really prove the earth was round - it was already widely known before he set sail from Spain — it was Columbus who bridged America and Europe.

That achievement wasn't enough, however, to save him from Congress, who moved the observance of his birthday from October 12 to the second Monday in October. That may put him in company with Washington, which is pretty fine company, indeed, but it's not enough to preserve his birthday.

Congress decided — when it approved the Uniform Monday Holiday Act back in 1968 - that Monday holidays are a nice thing and Memorial Day could be shifted to accommodate that preference. So Congress moved the day of its observance from May 30 to the last Monday of the month.

Congress is expert at manipulating time, as it has proven time and again whenever it adjusts Daylight Savings Time to suit its whims. If it can move the hands of a clock, it could move the calendar, too.

So it's interesting that the July 4th holiday of Independence Day has escaped intervention by our nation's lawmakers. Perhaps it is because the birth of our nation is such a shared experience, even if the Second Continental Congress really voted to separate from England on July 2, 1776. But that was in a closed session, so few took note until the final draft of the ballyhooed Declaration of Independence was approved two days later.

Maybe it is because the actions taken by our Founding Fathers collectively is worthy of reverence. And independence, even with a lower case "i," is intertwined with the American experience.

Although Americans didn't invent democracy, and surely haven't perfected it, the nation has given birth to the American way of life: one person, one vote; freedom of speech and religion; protection from dictators, military rule and royalty.

Some argue that this is not the greatest nation on earth. We wouldn't want to live anywhere else.